


Shattered

by orphan_account



Series: Two Brothers Holmes [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Adorable, Childhood, Corporal Punishment, Cuddles, Fluff, Fluffy, Funny, Gen, Kidlock, M/M, Smashed Window, Spanking, Sweet, Teenlock, Window, smacking, tiny bit of Johnlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-12
Updated: 2015-02-12
Packaged: 2018-03-12 02:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3340043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One day, Mr and Mrs Holmes may go totally mad.<br/>Their sons will be responsible.<br/>That, or the most unfortunate window in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shattered

“Who's responsible for this?” Mrs Holmes sternly asked, waving a hand in the direction of the window which had shattered inches from her head just a moment before. The boys in front of her took a moment to glower at one another before answering.

“Mycroft.” Sherlock firmly said, at precisely the same second as Mycroft spat,

“Sherlock.”

Mrs Holmes rolled her eyes, used to the antics of her eight and fifteen year old sons. “I'll ask once more, who is responsible?”

The sigh which escaped from Mycroft was heavy and spittle-laden. “I suppose we're both partially responsible, mother, but I must say that it was rather more Sherlock's fault than mine.”

Without realising, Mrs Holmes's arms crossed across her chest, and one eyebrow shot up.

“Mycroft, leave the room for a moment and wait in the kitchen.”

“But, mother, I-”

“Mycroft!”

Mycroft jumped violently at the sudden shout but obediently left the room, trailing into the kitchen with an exasperated sigh. Meanwhile, Sherlock stared nervously up at his mother, twisting his fingers together as he evaluated the situation. It would be very unlike his mother to punish without getting the full story, but why would she have sent Mycroft out otherwise?

“Tell me what happened, now.”

Sherlock took a moment to think before carefully speaking. “Well, after you insisted that myself and Mycroft 'went outside' and 'had fun' – two things which never happen at the same time, mummy – we started playing with a tennis ball. Mycroft was terrible at it, and after I threw a reasonable ball to him he hit it wildly with his tennis racket and it went through the window.”

“If Mycroft was using the racket, why do you have it?”

Sherlock gulped. “Um, well, he threw it to the ground in frustration after realising his mistake and then stormed off in an attempt to frame me.”

“Go into the kitchen and send Mycroft in, will you?” Mrs Holmes gave her youngest son a tight squeeze on the shoulder before he left, but privately shook her head. Knowing the both of them, she'd never get the straight story. She wasn't even _angry_ , she just wanted to know what had happened.

* * *

 

Fifteen was a horrible age. At ten or eleven, a child was still a child, innocent and sometimes sweet. At twelve, they got a bit of a swagger in their step, they became a shadow of maturity. Thirteen and fourteen were followed by frustration that they weren't older. Fifteen was the crisis year. Realisation that their childhood had gone, frustration that they were considered neither an adult nor a child (fifteen really is a very teenager-y year) and spots. Lots of spots and grease and hormones.

Mycroft was even worse.

His lanky figure, already near six foot, loped into the room with an awkwardness that came from a recent growth spurt and thus the fact that he had to learn how to manoeuvre his limbs again. His red hair was lank and greasy. His pale skin was covered in pimples and pustules, and his nose was a mass of pores and blackheads. He wore a T-shirt and jeans, because he had no means to purchase the suits which he would like to wear, and he looked rather worried, unattractively biting his lip.

“Tell me what happened, Mikey.”

Mycroft shifted from one foot to the other. “Sherlock and I were tossing a ball about when he went and fetched a tennis racket. I threw the ball to him and he swung a little too wildly, and it went through the window.”

Mrs Holmes nodded, for this seemed a far more tangible story than Sherlock's nonsense. Noting Mycroft's hand-wrenching and body-twitching, she gave him a smile. “You're not in trouble, Mikey – accidents happen. Just so long as it doesn't happen again!”

Relief broke across her oldest son's face as he smiled and relaxed. “Thank you, mother – I'll be more careful in future, and Sherlock definitely will be, too.”

With a yank, Mrs Holmes pulled Mycroft into a warm hug, which he gingerly relaxed into. “You're a good boy, Mycroft.”

“Thank you, mother. Now, have myself and Sherlock had enough 'outside time'?”

Mrs Holmes rolled her eyebrows. “You can stay inside now.”

With a hasty pat to his mother's shoulder, Mycroft dashed off upstairs back to whatever project he had been working on.

* * *

 

_Smash!_ When the noise reached Mrs Holmes, she was sure she'd imagined it. The exact same had resonated through her ears less than twenty four hours previously, and she'd then had to deal a very grumpy emergency DIY woman (Mrs Holmes, for all of her intellect, had no idea who to call in the case of a broken window – a glazier? A handyperson?) who had fixed the window and charged an extortionate amount of money. When Mr Holmes had gotten home from shopping, he'd actually been angrier than Mrs Holmes – something very rare – and had been rather astonished that she'd punished neither of their sons.

“Darling, they broke a _window_! They cost us _several hundred pounds_.”

Mrs Holmes smiled and pushed a placating cup of tea in the direction of her husband. “Didn't you ever have a silly accident as a child?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“I was playing around in the kitchen with a friend and we knocked into a shelf of plates – the shelf broke and the plates all broke too.”

“And what happened?” Mrs Holmes knew her parents in law well, and liked them tremendously. They were kind, generous people who knew how to react to situations.”

Mrs Holmes shuffled. “My father taught me how to mend shelves and my mum scolded me and then took me into the village to buy some plates.”

That had been yesterday. The pressing issue in that moment was why she had heard a window smashing.

“Sherlock? Mycroft? Come here!” she called, feeling dread bubble up within her. Crossing into the living room, which had the window that had broken yesterday in it, she blanched. Instead of a small hole surrounded by cracks and shatters, the window was almost entirely smashed in, and a football had bounced off of something and was sat cheekily looking out from underneath a table. Outside, staring in with a frozen expression of horror, stood Sherlock. Just then, Mycroft pushed open the living room, having heard his mother call for them.

“What's wr- oh.”

* * *

 

“Sherlock? Look at me, please.”

Sherlock slowly looked up, looking positively angelic with his wide, clear eyes and mop of curly hair. Mrs Holmes sighed.

“After I talked to Mycroft yesterday, I talked to you, didn't I?”

Sherlock nodded. “Yes, mummy.”

“What did I tell you?”

“Not to play with balls or anything like that in the garden unless you or father were there to supervise.”

“Do you think that this is reasonable?”

“Not really, mummy – I'm not a _complete_ baby, I can look after a ball or a racket.”

One of Mrs Holmes's eyebrows shot up, and Sherlock immediately took on an alarmed expression. “Oh, is that so? Your behaviour today has made me disbelieve that. Why were you playing in the garden? You don't normally.”

Sherlock shrugged. “I'd been lead to believe that football skills would make me popular at school.”

Mrs Holmes tugged her son into a hug and held his wriggling form close for a moment. “Sherlock, you haven't even started there yet. Things will be fine.”

Sherlock shrugged. “Perhaps.”

“Sherlock, did you deliberately disobey a rule by not asking me or your father to come and watch you?”

“I suppose so.”

“You suppose so?”

A heavy sigh escaped Sherlock. “Yes, mummy, I did, but I really didn't think that I'd break the window, it's statistically improbable, almost impossible.”

Mrs Holmes held her arms open, and this time Sherlock entered the hug by choice, letting his mother hold him tightly for almost a minute. Then, she pushed him back.

“Sherlock, I hate punishing you – and your brother, too. I hate it. I have to, though, because I need you to know that what you did was wrong.”

Sherlock gave a slight nod, pressing his lips together. “I do try to follow the rules that you and father set, mummy.”

Mrs Holmes felt her heart crack a little at the pathetic look her youngest son was giving her. Thinking of the broken window, which would cost rather a lot of money as it would need to be replaced rather than fixed, she forced herself to toughen up.

“Take your trousers down, darling.”

Sherlock nodded like he had been expecting it, before unbuttoning his jeans and lowering them to knee-level. Giving her son a last, brief cuddle, Mrs Holmes scooped him up and over her lap, rubbing his back gently with one hand. Even though he moaned and whined about comfort and affection, he needed it, craved it subconsciously.

The first smack was harder than usual, because Mrs Holmes wanted it to be over with. Sherlock didn't react, he simply lay there. Two more sharp smacks came down, right across his sit spot. This time, Sherlock let out a slight whimper, kicking out his left leg. Mrs Holmes began to set up a steady pace, two fast, hard smacks followed by a quick reprieve and a gentle rub to his back..two smacks, a rub, two smacks, a rub. Sherlock was generally very stoic, and this time was no different, simply letting out a whimper now and then. After twenty solid smacks, he was very sore and very sorry. Without moving her son, Mrs Holmes pulled up his trousers and pulled him into a hug, dangling his sore bottom between her knees as she held him close. He relaxed into the hug for a few moments before stiffening and pulling back.

“Honestly, mummy, I'm not a baby.”

Mrs Holmes grinned. Really, all this obedience had to end eventually, even if it had only lasted for five minutes.

* * *

 

The sofa in Mr and Mrs Holmes's room generally sat unoccupied, not used for anything except for the obvious aesthetic purposes.

The same night as the second window break in two days, it was occupied by the two Holmes boys, both of whom were confused as to why they had been called there.

“Twice in two days the same window has been broken. That's not good.” Mr Holmes spoke, while Mrs Holmes sat on the bed, holding the bill from the highly irritated DIY woman who had dealt with their window for the second time.

Mycroft nodded, eager to get back to his experiment (a simple flame test, but still a pretty one). Sherlock merely wriggled in his seat, still very aware of the smacking he'd received earlier in the day.

“From now on, if any rules are broken that lead to the window – or any other window or part of the house – being damaged, whoever is responsible will be caned.”

Sherlock shivered slightly, while Mycroft's head shot up, shocked.

* * *

 

_ Twenty Three Years Later _

 

The blue sheet and cardboard taped over the window was the first thing the brothers noticed when they arrived at their old home for a mandatory weekend trip (along with John, who as Sherlock's new boyfriend wanted to see his old home and meet his parents).

“Is the window broken?” Sherlock asked with interest, observing the chipped paint around the area. Mrs Holmes sighed.

“A bird flew into it so hard that it cracked. As it's not an 'emergency' we have to wait until Monday to get it fixed.”

Mycroft glanced at his little brother, and the slight quirk of his eyebrow was enough to make Sherlock laugh.

“Did you cane the bird?” Sherlock asked, ignoring the bewildered look on John's face. Mr and Mrs Holmes both laughed heartily.

“I'm not sure that the house rules apply to birds. You two had better watch out, though!” Mr Holmes grinned at his two sons, before turning to John. “They broke that window twice in two days, and we had to make sure they wouldn't do it again. For two such precocious children they were very good at making the same mistake twice.”

“That's not true!” Mycroft exclaimed. “I was an excellent child. I think you might have combined Sherlock and I in your head – I never made the same mistake twice!”

Mrs Holmes grinned at how outraged her eldest looked, before patting him on the arm. “Don't worry, Mikey, we know that you were a good boy.”

Scarlet from the embarrassment of being patronised, Mycroft stormed from the room.

* * *

 

John was lucky that he turned to look at Sherlock and Mycroft as the football whistled through the air. He himself had suggested the game initially, expecting them both to be awful, but even Mycroft showed surprising skill at football. Then, Mycroft had given it one kick too hard, and there it was, flying through the air towards the window... _ smash! _

Sherlock's eyes were wide and he stared at the window with strange expression on his face, and while Mycroft's face remained a mask he took a sharp step backwards, his eyes slightly wider. Silence fell over the three as John grinned, wondering what would happen next. If the window was already going to be fixed, it wasn't too terrible a tragedy, so hopefully it wouldn't cast a shadow over the trip.

Then she emerged.

With a face half thunderous, half amused, Mrs Holmes stormed out into the back garden, wielding a small cane, of which Sherlock had become intimately familiar with years before.

“I warned you!” she shouted, her face breaking into a grin. Sherlock broke into a run, with Mycroft soon following. Laughter bubbled up within John as he watched Mrs Holmes chase her children around the garden under the fading summer sunshine, swishing the cane about like a samurai sword.

It was good to be part of a family.

 


End file.
